Gangster gets full parole

after serving 9 months in prison

Part of mafia empire: Early release automatic because drug crimes are not considered violent

Adrian Humphreys / National Post

A Montreal man sentenced to four years in prison nine months ago for his role in a Mafia-led drug empire was fast-tracked for early release despite "very disturbing" findings by the National Parole Board.

Antonio "Anthony" LaRosa, 23, was sentenced in May for his role in a gang that imported 1,500 kilograms of cocaine, with a wholesale value of about $30-million, into Canada from Colombia.

The Toronto-based Mafia group, led by Alfonso Caruana, who was described by police as the world's richest and most powerful gangster, was dismantled in 1998 after one of the most expensive criminal investigations in Canadian history.

Last month, the Quebec office of the parole board approved LaRosa for full parole.

"Your active role in this high level drug trafficking scheme and your links to organized crime are very disturbing," a board member wrote of LaRosa in the board's decision registry.

"The operation was international in scope and involved significant amounts of drugs and money.

"The board notes that you do not appear to have had viable employment for some years."

LaRosa's parole was approved, however, under the automatic parole review process because he was a first-time offender and not charged with a violent crime.

The board noted that LaRosa was a good parole candidate because there "is no indication of aggressive behaviour or involvement."

Critics said Canada's parole regulations are inadequate if large-scale, organized drug trafficking is not considered a violent offence.

"The parole board should remember that drug traffickers are merchants of death," said Antonio Nicaso, an organized crime specialist who is co-authoring a book about the Caruana clan.

"I think that Parliament should change that concept because drug trafficking should be considered a dangerous offence. People don't realize, or don't want to realize, that behind the drugs there are many stories of addiction and death."

LaRosa is the second member of the Caruana organization to be released recently on fast-tracked parole. Giuseppe Caruana, Alfonso's 30-year-old nephew, was released under the same provision in October.

Canada's parole allowances make the country attractive to international drug lords, said Mr. Nicaso. "This is one of the other reasons that explain the high concentration of drug traffickers and criminal organizations in this country."

Vic Toews, justice critic for the Canadian Alliance, said the government should make gangsters ineligible for fast-tracked parole if it is serious about wanting to tackle organized crime.

"These organizations thrive on violence, so it seems the reasoning of the parole board is somewhat suspect," said Mr. Toews.

"Knowing the type of organization this individual was involved in, why would they put him on that kind of accelerated program? I think they are treating a person who is a member of an organized gang in the same way they would treat an ordinary, street-level criminal with no gang association."

LaRosa was arrested in September, 1998, and was free on bail until he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring to traffic in narcotics.

The Caruana organization was importing massive shipments of cocaine into Canada from Colombia through Venezuela and the United States.

As part of the group's organization, LaRosa helped organize the shipment of 200 kilograms of cocaine in the spring of 1998.

The drugs, 70% pure, were tightly wrapped into bricks and hidden in a pickup truck to be driven by couriers from Houston into Canada. The truck was intercepted by police in Texas, and the cocaine was seized.

Court documents say LaRosa's father, Nunzio LaRosa, 50, of Montreal was responsible for delivering payments for drug shipments to suppliers in the United States. Nunzio LaRosa made close to a dozen trips south delivering between $1-million and $2-million at a time.

Antonio LaRosa relayed information between the group's couriers and his father using a pager and cellular phone. He helped to make travel arrangements for the couriers, purchasing airline tickets for two couriers who flew to the United States in order to drive a load of cocaine back into Canada.

The police probe of the Caruana organization, which was called Project Omerta after the Mafia's code of silence, lasted two years and involved agencies on three continents.

Caruana was sentenced to 18 years in prison and his two brothers, Gerlando and Pasquale, were also convicted in the case.

ino had a problem any father could appreciate. His family, once a model of joy in Montreal's Italian neighbourhood of Saint-Léonard, was being torn apart because of his son's lustful stupidity. Although married to a pleasant Sicilian woman and the father of three children, Lino's only son was planning to leave his family for a rowdy francophone woman who hung around with bikers.